Editing David Baker (composer) (section)

==Career==
Trained as a music educator and trombonist, Baker spent the early part of his career in the 1940s and 1950s as a jazz musician, performing and recording in the United States and in Europe. A facial injury suffered in an automobile accident in 1953 ended his career as a trombonist, but Baker switched to cello and turned his attention to teaching and musical composition. In 1966 he joined the music faculty at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he established the school's jazz studies program. He was later named an IU distinguished professor and chair of the university's Jazz Studies department in the [[Jacobs School of Music]]. In addition, he became one of the co-musical directors of the [[Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra]] in 1991. He composed music, mostly on commission, and wrote hundreds of scholarly works related to music. He was active in numerous musical arts organizations.<ref name="De Lerma"/><ref name="IU page"/>

===Early years===
After earning his master's degree from Indiana in 1954, he began teaching at [[Lincoln University (Missouri)|Lincoln University]] in [[Jefferson City, Missouri]], in 1955.<ref name=HTonline/> Lincoln, a historically black institution, had recently begun to admit white students to diversify its student body; however, Baker had to resign from his teaching position after he married Eugenia ("Jeanne") Marie Jones, a white opera singer, due to Missouri's anti-[[miscegenation]] laws.<ref name="Legacy"/> One of his students at Lincoln was the composer [[John Elwood Price]].<ref name="Biblio">{{cite web | author=Calvert Johnson| title=Organ Works by Composers from Africa and the African Diaspora: Bibliography | url=https://www.agohq.org/ | publisher=American Guild of Organists | year=2013 | access-date=January 16, 2016}}</ref> Baker returned to Indiana and taught private music lessons in Indianapolis and performed in local bands. He did not resume his academic teaching career until 1966.<ref name="De Lerma"/>

===Musical performer===
Baker began performing as a trombonist in Indianapolis during high school and college. He played in clubs along [[Indiana Avenue]], the heart of the city's jazz scene of the late 1940s and early 1950s, with [[Jimmy Coe]], [[Slide Hampton]], J. J. Johnson, and [[Wes Montgomery]]. He mentored [[Freddie Hubbard]] and [[Larry Ridley]].<ref name=HTonline/> He later credited the Hampton family, especially noted jazz trombonist Slide Hampton, for mentoring him in his early years. The Hamptons let him and other local musicians rehearse with their family's jazz band at their Indianapolis home.<ref name=Conversation>{{cite web| author=David Johnson| title =The Basics of David Baker: A Conversation | work =Night Lights | publisher =Indiana Public Media | date =August 28, 2007 | url =https://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/the-basics-of-david-baker-a-conversation/ | access-date =July 2, 2018}}</ref>

During the 1950s Baker played in several big bands, including [[Lionel Hampton]]'s orchestra. After moving to California in 1956, he played with the West Coast jazz orchestras of [[Stan Kenton]] and [[Maynard Ferguson]] before returning to Indianapolis to lead his jazz band for two years. He performed in clubs across the United States, including the [[Five Spot Café]] in New York City with [[George Russell (composer)|George Russell]] in the late 1950s.<ref name=Conversation/><ref name=Scholarship>{{cite web | title =David N. Baker Jazz Composition Scholarship | publisher =BMI Foundation | url =https://bmifoundation.org/programs/info/david_n._baker_jazz_composition_scholarship | access-date =June 29, 2018 | archive-date =July 2, 2018 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20180702233152/https://bmifoundation.org/programs/info/david_n._baker_jazz_composition_scholarship | url-status =dead }}</ref> In 1960 he toured Europe as a member of [[Quincy Jones]]'s band.<ref name=Trombone/> He also performed in Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand during his more than sixty-year career.<ref name=Buckley/>

Baker abandoned the trombone after a car accident in 1953 injured his jaw, but he began learning to play the cello in the early 1960s. Although he played trombone on the George Russell Sextet's album ''[[Ezz-thetics]]'' (1961), after sustaining the injury, Baker switched to cello for [[Charles Tyler (musician)|Charles Tyler]]'s album, ''[[Eastern Man Alone]]'' (1967).<ref name=Buckley/><ref>{{cite AV media notes |title=Ezz-thetics |others=George Russell |type=liner notes |year=1961 |publisher=Riverside Records |id=RLP-9375 |first=Martin |last=Williams}}</ref><ref name="Wynn">{{cite web|author=Ron Wynn|title=David Baker: Artist Biography|url=http://www.allmusic.com/artist/david-baker-mn0000143360/biography|website=AllMusic|access-date=November 18, 2016}}</ref> Baker was also able to play trombone with Russell's orchestra on ''Living Time'' (1972), a collaboration with [[Bill Evans]], before the jaw injury finally caused him to give up the trombone and focus on teaching and composition.<ref name=Tamarkin-Haga>{{cite magazine|author1=[[Jeff Tamarkin]]|author2=Evan Haga| title =David Baker, Composer and Educator, Dies as 84| magazine=[[JazzTimes]]| date =March 27, 2016 | url =https://jazztimes.com/news/david-baker-composer-and-educator-dies-at-84/ | access-date =July 2, 2018}}</ref>

Baker is credited on sixty-five recordings, including performances on two of Russell's albums, ''[[Stratusphunk]]'' (1960) and ''[[The Stratus Seekers]]'' (1962).<ref name=Scholarship/><ref name=Wynn/> Beginning in the 1990s he performed with his second wife, Lida Belt Baker, a classically trained flautist.<ref name=Higgins/>

===Music educator and author===
Although he began as a performer on trombone and cello, Baker is better known for his fifty-year career as a professor of jazz music and for his published works and musical compositions. Because his facial injury in 1953 largely ended the performing aspect of his career, he returned to his home state of Indiana and began a period of increased interest in musical composition and pedagogy.<ref name=Trombone/><ref name=Wynn/>

In 1966 he began teaching at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University, where he established a jazz studies program. He was the music school's second African American faculty member and its sole jazz studies instructor for his first ten years at the school.<ref name=Conversation/><ref name=NYT/> The jazz studies curriculum was approved as a degree program in 1968, a time when only about a dozen American universities taught jazz as an academic discipline.<ref name=Higgins/>

Baker eventually became an IU Distinguished Professor of Music, serving as chair of the Jazz Studies department from 1968 to 2013 and as an adjunct professor in the African American and African Diaspora Studies department.<ref name="IU page"/> His work as an educator helped make IU a highly regarded school for students of jazz. His students included [[Michael Brecker]], [[Randy Brecker]], [[Pharez Whitted]], [[Peter Erskine]], [[Jim Beard]], [[Chris Botti]], [[Shawn Pelton]], [[Jeff Hamilton (drummer)|Jeff Hamilton]], and [[Jamey Aebersold]].<ref name=Higgins/>

Baker was among the first to codify the largely aural tradition of jazz. He is credited with writing 70 books, including several on jazz, such as ''Jazz Styles & Analysis – Trombone: A History of the Jazz Trombone Via Recorded Solos'' (1973), ''Jazz Improvisation'' ( 1988), and ''David Baker's Jazz Pedagogy'' (1989).<ref name=NYT/><ref name=Baker-JI>{{cite book | last =Baker | first =David | title =Jazz Improvisation: A Comprehensive Method for All Musicians | publisher =[[Alfred Publishing]] | year =1988| isbn=0-88284-370-2}}</ref> He is also credited with writing 400 articles.<ref name=Scholarship/>

===Composer===
Baker's compositions are often cited as examples of [[third stream]] jazz, although they included traditional jazz, [[chamber music]], [[sonata]]s, [[film score]]s, and [[Symphony|symphonic]] works. He is credited with writing more than 2,000 compositions, including his concerto "Levels" (1973) which received a [[Pulitzer Prize]] nomination, and the musical score for the [[PBS]] documentary film ''For Gold and Glory'' (2003), which won him an [[Emmy Award]].<ref name=HTonline/><ref name=BakerSongbook>{{cite web| author=David Johnson| title =The David Baker Songbook | work =Night Lights | publisher =Indiana Public Media | date =December 21, 2011 | url =https://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/david-baker-songbook/ | access-date =June 29, 2018}}</ref>

Baker's best-known composition, which also received significant media attention, was Concertino for Cell Phones and Orchestra, a commission from Chicago Sinfonetta.<ref name=NYT/><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Martens |first=Cynthia |date=2006-09-28 |title=A Symphony for Cell Phones |url=https://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1540442,00.html |access-date=2024-06-13 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title='Concertino for Cell Phones' Draws in Audience|publisher=[[NPR]]|date=2 October 2006|access-date=7 June 2024|url=https://www.npr.org/2006/10/02/6180007/concertino-for-cell-phones-draws-in-audience}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Pasles |first=Chris |date=2006-06-18 |title=A concertino with a too familiar ring |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jun-18-ca-artsnotes18.3-story.html |access-date=2024-06-13 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref> Baker's other compositions include a tribute to [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] in 1968, a violin concerto for [[Josef Gingold]], a flute concerto for James Pellerite, as well as Cello Concerto (1975), which he dedicated to cellist [[János Starker]], and "Ode to Starker" (1999).<ref name="De Lerma"/>

He received over 500 commissions from individuals and ensembles, including compositions that he wrote for Gingold, Starker, [[Ruggiero Ricci]], [[Harvey Phillips]], trumpeter David Coleman, the [[New York Philharmonic]], the [[Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra]], the [[Beaux Arts Trio]], the [[Fisk Jubilee Singers]], and the [[Audubon Quartet]], in addition to the [[Louisville Symphony]], Ohio Chamber Orchestra, and the [[International Horn Society]].<ref name="De Lerma"/> Other musical groups have recorded his compositions. The [[Buselli–Wallarab Jazz Orchestra]]'s album ''Basically Baker'' (2005) includes interpretations of his compositions, many of them written for [[big band]]s and ensembles.<ref name=BakerSongbook/>